Staten Island pol proposes a fix for road 'rumble strips'

The multiple asphalt patches on streets in front of new houses and stores should be covered with one smooth patch, instead of the tire jolting, patchwork quilt "rumble strip" effect left behind now, according to City Councilmen James Oddo and Simcha Felder.

The lawmakers want the city's Department of Transportation to require builders and utilities like Con Ed and Keyspan to do a better job covering over the cuts they make in city streets, to leave restore the street to it's original condition. The haphazard patches that are common across the borough are prone to deterioration, causing potholes, ruts, and bumps that then need to be repaired again.

They pointed to a section of street in front of new homes on Rockland Avenue just before Richmond Avenue as an example of the bumpy ride left behind by multiple patches. But the freshly paved stretch of New Dorp Plaza between Cloister Place and Steele Avenue is an example of a thorough repair job.

"It's a fundamental and common sense notion that, should you break something, you should be required to fix it," Oddo said. "The streets of New York might not be paved with gold, but they are paved with taxpayer dollars. This requirement would ensure that taxpayer dollars do not go to waste when contractors incompletely fix what they have dug up."